Franz Titelmans in Lope's Arcadia

Abstract

It is safe to predict that S. A. Vosters' soberly factual study on de Vega y Titelmans 1 will prove less ephemeral than most contributions to the Lope quadricentennial. There are large claims implicit in the subtitle, C6mo el Fenix se representaba el universo, but I suspect that future investigations will temper this apparent extravagance and confirm Titelmans' position as a major authority for Lope's conception of the physical and biological world and the operation of the human mind and senses. Vosters examines Lope's dependence on the Dutch Franciscanprimarily on his Compendium naturalis historiae-in El Isidro (1599), El peregrino en su patria (1604), Jerusalen conquistada (1609), and a letter to Francisco de las Cuevas (1626), writings covering a period of many years. As usual, it is Lope himself who provides the scholar with a key. In fact in all nineteen instances adduced, he refers to Titelmans directly, almost always in a marginal note. The circumstance is a happy one, because eighteen of the passages are in verse, which means that the thought of the original may be so thoroughly recast as nearly or entirely to efface the normal traces of borrowing. Thus while a practiced reader can be trusted to detect such traces now and then (as in the quintilla Mas como tan cerca tiene/el calor del coraz6n/templanza y respiraci6n,/assi es bien la ira enfrene/el aire de la raz6n ) ,2 he is not likely to pause uninvited at a stanza like the following: